startup, .profile, env.vars., etc.

[Ryo Furue]

Hi Kevin,

| /bin/sh is probably a link for /bin/bash, which means the /bin/sh
| executing  startkde is bash, started as a login shell, thus sourcing
| .bash_profile 

But, I don't think /usr/bin/startkde sources .bash_profile .  Its
first line is "#!/bin/sh".  Therefore, "/bin/sh /usr/bin/startkde" is
what is executed.  (This is confirmed by the output from "ps -ef".)
In that case, this shell is not a login shell.

You can confirm this by writing a little test script like this:

   #!/bin/sh
   echo $HELLO_KEVIN

(Remember I have this env.var. set in my .bash_profile .)
Only when the first line is "#!/bin/bash -l", my .bash_profile is
sourced.  (As an aside, even "#!/bin/sh -l" doesn't source
.bash_profile.  Even though sh is a symlink to bash, it seems to
behave differently according to the name by which it's invoked.)

Groping around, I seem to find a clue.  /etc/kde3/kdm/Xsession has
these lines

    if [ -f $HOME/.bash_profile ]; then
      . $HOME/.bash_profile

Reading /etc/kde3/kdm/kdmrc, I got an impression that
/etc/kde3/kdm/Xsession is the script that is executed when
you chose KDE, Gnome, etc. The explanation of Xsession in
/etc/kde3/kdm/kdmrc reads

   # The program which is run as the user which logs in. It is
   # supposed to interpret the session argument (see SessionsDirs) and
   # start an appropriate session according to it.

So, it will be given the name of the session (kde, gnome, etc.) that
the user has chosen.

In turn, /etc/kde3/kdm/Xsession seems to pass the name on to
/etc/X11/Xsession, which ultimately determines what to invoke, it
seems.

If my (very sketchy) analysis is correct, which I'm not sure at all,
it's KDM that sources my .bash_profile .  If so, when was this change
made?   I clearly remember that my .bash_profile wasn't sourced when
I first installed this machine, which was last summer or fall.

Cheers,
Ryo
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